I have been adding some more ligatures to the Chronicle Text M font this morning and have uploaded the resulting font to the web.
Readers who downloaded version 0.261 and would like to keep a copy of that might like to rename the copy of CHRONTXM.TTF which they already have to become CHRONTXM0261.TTF before downloading the new version of CHRONTXM.TTF.
The latest version of CHRONTXM.TTF is version 0.262 and is available as follows.
I have been adding some more ligatures to the Chronicle Text M font this afternoon and have uploaded the resulting font to the web.
Readers who downloaded version 0.262 and would like to keep a copy of that might like to rename the copy of CHRONTXM.TTF which they already have to become CHRONTXM0262.TTF before downloading the new version of CHRONTXM.TTF.
The latest version of CHRONTXM.TTF is version 0.263 and is available as follows.
don’t know if this thread is still being read, but:
some questions about ligatures, and other alternate glyphs, and where to put them… and does it matter..?
first: ligatures.. i’m testing some i made out in a web browser, using &#xxxx;. i’d made fi fl ffl etc at unicode FB00 or so, and carried on beyond… ci ct gi si gg oo gt fj … i went through the 12 reserved boxes and into the armenian forms…: the browser displayed them ok to begin with, but then started to give the notdef sign… and i got the same quirk when i put them in this ‘golden ligatures’ E700 area. so then i mapped them to a low number, starting at 1000, coptic or something, and they display fine.
But: Volt asks you to identify the substitutions by glyph index number. So, does it matter where they actually go…? this is my 1st go at ligatures, so maybe this is a daft question… it’s just that i don’t own an up to date programme that can do the switching.
and then:
what about swashes and old style numerals and so on. are there preferred areas for all? all in the same place?
It does matter where you put alternate glyphs, though within the Private Use Area you can map them any way that you wish. I wouldn’t recommend using the Coptic character set. It will confuse users who use your fonts with Coptic characters and it prevents you from adding Coptic characters to your fonts, should you ever wish to do so.
If you’re using VOLT then they don’t need to be mapped at all (take a look at Palatino Linotype, for example), but as you say that you have no applications that support OpenType features then they do need to be mapped or they cannot be used.
FontCreator assigns the following Private Use Area codepoints for use with Small Capitals, Stacking Fractions, Old Style Numerals, and Ligatures:
58033-58126 Basic Latin Small Capitals
58161-58255 Latin-1 Supplement Small Capitals
58256-58383 Latin Extended-A Small Capitals
58384-58591 Latin Extended-B Small Capitals
58912-58974 Basic Greek Small Capitals
59072-59218 Cyrillic Small Capitals
59680-59829 Latin Extended Additional Small Capitals
60531-60542 Number Forms, Nut Fractions or Stacking Fractions
61125-61148 Selected Ligatures from the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative
All values are in decimal notation since the Complete Composites feature data file uses decimal codepoints.
The Medieval Unicode Font Initiative is an extensive proposal to the Unicode Consortium for inclusion of additional codepoints. FontCreator includes definitions for some of these. It may save some work to use the Transform Scripts to add the ligatures to your fonts, then the mappings will be done for you.
See my tutorial on Customising Unicode Data for some insight into how the Private Use Area is currently allocated.
The standard Unicode data text file distributed with FontCreator does not include these non-standard definitions in the Private Use Area. Mappings in the PUA had to be assigned in order to make Complete Composites and Transform scripts work at all, and to use these extended features in applications that do not support OpenType features.
… and i got the same quirk when i put them in this ‘golden ligatures’ E700 area.
The golden ligatures collection is just the independent idea of one person (me!) and the specific code point allocations have no formal validity with Unicode. However, they are Unicode compatible in that they are a particular use of part of the Unicode Private Use Area, the Unicode Private Use Area being available for any person to use for his or her own code point allocations. All allocations within the Unicode Private Use Area are not unique as any person may define such allocations, however they are guaranteed not to conflict with the code point allocations of regular Unicode.
Using codres in the range U+FB07 upwards for ligatures is, in my opinion, a mistake. This is because the codes are not offered for private use allocations and applications may know that they are unassigned and may treat their use as an error.
The use of Unicode Private Use Area code points for ligatures is thought of badly by some typographers, though not by me. Some people seem to take the line that unless one has an OpenType font with an OpenType-aware application that one should do without ligatures. I do not agree. There is a distinction between using such ligature glyph code point allocations for producing display effects locally and using such ligature glyph code point allocations for sending information from one user to another user. The former seems alright always to me. The latter seems to me alright if used with care and the recipient is aware of the code point allocations being used.
I would advise though not to use codes in the range U+F000 to U+F0FF for your allocations as that range was used by Microsoft for its now obsolescent yet still used Private Use Area allocations for fi ligature at U+F001 and fl ligature at U+F002 and for its symbol fonts at U+F020 to U+F0FF: though I cannot say that I know that other use will cause problems, I think it best to avoid it for other uses, just in case.
I would also advise a little against using hexadecimal codes ending in 00 as I sometime ago noticed problems when keying some of them using Alt codes in WordPad on a Windows 98 PC: a press of the space bar being needed as well. I think that this might possibly have been something to do with an old Microsoft way for inputting some Japanese characters, but I am not sure.
thanks for that information. i shall try to digest it.
It will confuse users who use your fonts with Coptic characters
i was going to say ‘too bad for the Copts’, but perhaps they’ve had enough to put up with.
…noticed problems when keying some of them using Alt codes in WordPad on a Windows 98 PC
i’m still on windows 98… my slight concern was that bits of code, or component routines, get reused between applications, and maybe my old computer browser’s dislike of certain numbers might reoccur in an up to date application.
…very excellent thing by the way, Font Creator…
Regarding Private Use Area code point allocations for special glyphs which might be useful in script fonts, the sixth and seventh posts in the following thread hopefully might be of interest.
it’s just that i don’t own an up to date programme that can do the switching. 